- Date: 04/02/2020
This Apprenticeship Week, we're sharing the stories of our apprentices who work with us here at Honeycomb Group.
We have three apprentices that work across a variety of teams and on a number of projects. One of those apprentices is Matt from our Enterprise and Growth team who is our first ever Degree Apprentice.
Degree Apprenticeships are a fairly new education route, recently launched by the Government. This new route enables people to study at a university level whilst gaining on the job training typical of an apprenticeship – without having to cover the cost of tuition.
Matt has been working with us for over 6 months now and we caught up with him to see how he was getting on: “Although I’ve only been working here for 6 months, everyone at Honeycomb has been so supportive and welcoming!
“My managers and colleagues are always praising me and are really interested in the work I do at university too!”
Many Degree Apprentices struggle to balance working full time with studying towards a qualification and its not the easy option as Matt explains: “It was really hard at first – I was studying, working and trying to have a social life all at the same time. But I’ve found staying in the office a bit later one night in the week helps me to get my uni work done.
"Honeycomb Group know my degree is important to me, so they give me study leave too.”
Although 64 Universities in England currently offer higher and degree apprenticeship courses, only a quarter of students apply or consider applying: "None of my friends are doing degree apprenticeships. And to be honest when I was looking there wasn’t a great deal on offer locally. It took me a while to find this one, so I can understand why it would put people off.
"I really wanted to gain some experience in construction and project management. Its so beneficial to have experience nowadays and I really liked that I could potentially have a job at the end of it all.
“For anyone thinking of doing a degree apprenticeship, I would say definitely do it! The experience you gain at work, really helps you with your studies. And on top of all that you get paid to do your degree! It means no debt, experience and so much more!”
You too could kickstart your career today! Find out about Honeycomb career opportunities here.